HELP! MITES ALL OVER

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creapedout

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Hi,

I bought a fruit fly culture....made 3 other cultures for my mantis egg sac.

Everything was fine until most of the cultures crashed....I was cleaning up and noticed millions of mites on the one culture....I was too creaped out to look at the others.

My setup....plastic cups with coffee filters held on by rubber bands for the fruit flys.

I had the cultures on glue sticky pads and this is how I noticed this beige...looked like cinnamon near the base.

I saw some mites had made it off the sticky pad....they were to the edge of the glue...walking on stuck/dead mites.

So the other cultures...some had crashed but their food was pretty low....I have thrown everything out.

I stored everything on a plywood shelf in my garage.

1) How far do mites travel...is the whole garage, or my house infested? Can they get on hands and clothes and be transferred into the house?

2) Is the plywood shelving unit and everything on it infested?

3) Are the mites on the flies, and therefore in the mantis enclosures?

My kids are severely allergic to everything....and if I brought these into the house...well I feel like moving!!!

Please help!

I have released most of the mantises but have kept like 8 of them. I will explain in another post.

Thanks!

Creaped

 
Do these bastards travel...or are they only interested in the fruit flies...or on the fruit fly food (yeast)?

Thanks!

 
So as far as them hitching a ride into the air conditioned home and living and breeding...chances are....

low....

could happen.....

Defcon 5.....burn down the house...

?

Thanks...Im a bit freaked right now

 
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If you need fruit flies to feed put a bowl of rotting fruit outside and soon there will be many fruit flies there.

 
I guess I am worried that the mites will start to search for food elsewhere...traveling in the garage. ... and then the house.

I am worried about cross contamination and bringing them into the house mostly.

Eh...if I need flies I will just buy some more....I think I am done breeding them.

I THOUGHT I was safe by having them on the sticky pads....but I did make the mistake of making all my cultures from the single culture I bought. Im not sure how long the mites have been there...the oldest culture where they were really bad I never looked at...hoping it would come back....

 
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There is something called mite paper you can find online, Mantisplace.com may have it? I keep my ff's down low on a shelf which in turn keeps them cool, never had a mite problem in over a year of keeping the same culture going. Hate to gross you out but mites are everywhere, it just when you see many all in one spot that people get the creeps.

 
Where do you order this flies culture powder from? The mites could have been in it before.

 
I got the ffs from silkwormshop. I made my own culture food from packaged oatmeal, vinegar, and canned applesauce....worked well for a bit.

The mite paper seemed expensive and I thought only people who had mny cultures going needed to worry.

I just dont want to get these things into the house i I havent already. I mean if I handled the cups, got some on my hands...touched a doorknob then the sink handle...ugh. This is like the movie "contagion" or something for me.

The mites may have been in the oatmeal...who knows really. Will the mites live in the mantis enclosures....plaatic cup capped with a sponged with papertowel in the bottom....do I need to discard those too?

 
I would not worry much about Grain mites. They are on already on almost all surfaces of an average house. I have never shown an allergic reaction to them. I would not worry to much about them.

 
It could be from oatmeals...

Or ffs carrying the mites with them.

 
yes they are everywhere and u see them because of the food supply they had, the fly paper I have is about and last a long time, it really works, I keep my roach and worm containers on it and fruit fly too, you can see the mites on it when they die, the mealworms are the worst for mites, I throw them out. I also have a spray that kills mites and bed bugs. not many sprays kill bedbugs, but this does. Best thing to do is throw out the old stuff, spray the plywood and start over with clean cultures like I HAVE! then use the paper and u should be good, also yes they will live in the mantis container, I take the mantis out and clean the container and put mantis back in. as long as there is no food supply they should die off.

 
Mites are everywhere, you wont be able to fully control them in any living situation as they are tracked in from outside very easily. There are people who have allergies to them and some who get a bit itchy around them but the bulk of us are fine. If you already have an infestation you need to understand that just trashing the feeders wont help, neither will buying a new culture you need to control it all. Make sure and bake the excelsior before using it as well as use boiling water/vinegar in the media. The area you keep them in is another issues, clean the shelves and mite spray the area, a well known and the best Mite spray is called provent-a-mite and you can order it online. Spray the area and repeat a month later. As for mite paper I find it just as easy to lay out paper towels and spray them and you have instant mite paper you can trash and make more of as often as you like not to mention its cheaper.. place the ff or feeder cultures on the mite paper and do not allow them to touch each other or the wall and this prevents infested cultures from spreading. Also keeping your ff in the light will help deter mites as well as mold if you have those issues.

As for mites in a bug viv just pull the mantis and clean the viv, spray the shelves the vivs sit on and it should limit the issues.

Another thing to consider is limiting how long you keep a ff culture around, seed new cultures with fewer flies and when feeding transfer them to a new cup then into a viv so that your ff cultures never come in contact with your prized critters.

 
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yes, I would have done things differently. However I may have lucked out by having the sticky pad and caught it just before they toally got on everything.

my main concern is if when handling the cultures, if I got a mite or two on my hands, or clothes, unnoticed ....

if a few got into the house....will they breed and infest the home?

I am lowering the humitidity in the house just in case.

Thanks

 
I was so freaked out when I noticed mites in my culture. I felt like they were crawling on me at night and couldn't sleep. But eventually I got over it and everything is fine now. I think it was mostly in my head. I didn't use the culture anymore and threw it out. I started a culture that didn't seem to have that problem with one from my local pet store.

 
When you buy a new culture from the pet store, I would imedetely transfer them into a new fresh made media deli and freeze then toss the old one.

 

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